Rating AMD Ryzen 5 1600: Gaming like i5, works like i7

Ryzen was born to break up AMD‘s hot, power-hungry idea from the past. The CPU temperature is good, the lowest is only 31.5 degrees while the highest is only 72.3 degrees C. After years of being Intel-dominated, the midrange CPU segment suddenly became hectic thanks to AMD Ryzen 5. With the number of cores/streams outperforming rivals in the same price range, Ryzen 5 became the bilingual choice compared to i5, which is only suitable for gaming. After the four-core 8-threaded R5 1400 and R5 1500X, today I was given the opportunity to experience another Ryzen 5 CPU, R5 1600.

R5 1600 is the 2nd/4th CPU in AMD’s Ryzen 5 series. While the R5 1600X competes directly with the i5-7600K, the R5 1600’s rival is the i5-7600. AMD’s dual clamshell advantage over its competitors is its six-core 12-thread configuration, which improves processing of computing tasks. These six physical cores are equally divided on two CCX cores, connected via Infinity Fabric. Therefore, RAM clock plays an extremely important role to take advantage of the performance of Ryzen CPUs from R5 1500X and above.

For detailed information, R5 1600 and R5 1600X have quite a number of similarities. Owning a 6-core configuration with 12 threads on two CCXs, the R5 doubles up to 16MB of L3 cache. However, clock cycles are one of the distinguishing features of these two CPUs. The R5 1600 clocked at 3.2 / 3.6GHz while the R5 1600X was 3.6 / 4.0GHz. Although different in terms of the X factor, XFR represents the CPU overclocking, both of which exceeds 100 MHz that give the highest clock rates of 3.7 GHz and 4.1 GHz respectively.

Test configuration:

-CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 1600 / Ryzen 5 1600X

-Motherboard: MSI X370 Gaming Pro Carbon

-RAM: Corsair Vengance RGB 4x8GB @ 2993 MHz

-GPU: Gigabyte GTX 1070 G1 Gaming

-NVMe: Samsung SM961 256 GB installed Windows 10 Pro

-SSD: SanDisk Ultra II 500GB

-Source: CoolerMaster Silent Pro 1000

-Energy: DeepCool Gammaxx 400

-Case: Phanteks P400 Tempered Glass

Performance and multimedia performance:

The Cinebench R15 is probably a very familiar test to measure the pure power of the CPU. At around 10% lower than the R5 1600X, it’s no wonder that the single-threaded and multi-threaded performance of the R5 1600 is about the same.

Next is the benchmark tool built right into the CPU-Z. This is a fairly intuitive testing tool when you can choose to directly compare with other CPUs in your application’s database. The performance difference is similar to the Cinebench R15.

3DMark TimeSpy is also a popular tool in the benchmark village. With the ability to calculate individual CPU points, individual GPUs, TimeSpy gives users the right score for each demand.

Game performance:

Located in the segment of over 5 million, the Ryzen 5 1600 is an extremely attractive option for mid-range / high-end gaming configurations. With up to three times the stream of rival i5-7600 Kaby Lake, the R5 1600 will be a future-oriented option as game engines will gradually support the massive flow of advanced CPUs. One thing to keep in mind is that in my tests, especially offline games with awesome graphics, my preference will always be image quality because when I do not really have to try hard or compete, Professional, aesthetic effect is more important.